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Comment by 88913527 | Hacker News Reader

The US House has a ceremonial mace that represents the legislature's authority. A few members have invoked mentions of it in heated debate, and it's been walked about the floor to maintain order. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mace_of_the_United_States_Hous...

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There’s actually a long history of personal violence in U.S. legislative bodies, especially leading up to the Civil War: https://www.history.com/news/charles-sumner-caning-cilley-du...

Fascinating. I'm German, we're largely peaceful as well - the most notable violence incident in parliament was all back in 1950, when MP Herbert Wehner beat up a vile Nazi apologist and threw him through a glass door [1].

[1] https://vorwaerts.de/artikel/10-maerz-1950-wehner-nazi-bunde...

Or just violence in general in the US. Let's not try and mask it.

Itself another aspect of the Founders' Roman Republic fetishism. The mace was inspired by the symbol of state authority, the fasces, composed of twigs that when bundled together were stronger than a single pole of similar girth. It was also a common architectural embellishment during the Deco era and is still on the wall of the US House behind the dais. The State of the Union cameras always zoom in exactly enough to keep them out of view, because the symbol became controversial around 1934 for some reason. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fasces

Another significant appearance of the mace is in academic settings. Even my community college had one. I only saw it in the display case in the library, but I am sure that it was lovingly carried in procession, or at least on display during commencement ceremonies.

The mace looks more like an imperial era legionary standard (Aquila) than a fasces to me.

Also it doesn’t really look like a mace used by British authorities, which is presumably where the name comes from.

looks like a pretty lousy mace to be honest

I think it looks pretty awesome, unless you are referring to it's effectiveness as a weapon...?

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